Social life of the Crow Indians / by Robert H. Lowie.

  • Robert Lowie
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Social life of the Crow Indians / by Robert H. Lowie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/72 page 188
    whether he wished to have the scalp, and Crow-face said he did not. Both returned to camp, and this apparently was the end of the affair. After Wraps-up-his-tail had been killed by Fire-bear, then a member of the Government’s Indian police, Wraps-up-his-tail’s fellow-clansmen, and especially his own brother, for a long time sought to kill the slayer. Some say that it was merely for Fire-bear’s protection that the Government continued to keep him in its employ. Once a party of Crow set out with the fastest horse in the tribe. It was captured by the Sioux, but a few days later the party went out again, and one Crow recovered it. The Sioux made an attack on the party, and the recoverer of the horse was fleeing with Buirds-all-over-the-ground. The former got off to take a drink, when his companion, who had been coveting the horse, killed him. The Sioux heard the report and came up to make a charge, but Birds-all-over-the-ground rode the fast horse and made his escape. For a long time the other Crow Indians did not know how he had got the horse and gave him great credit for bringing it back to the tribe. Much later they found out the actual circumstances of the murder from a Sioux visitor. The victim’s old father began to ery when he heard the news, and the murdered man’s clansmen (birik-6’oce) prepared to avenge his death. Birds-all-over-the-ground belonged to the aci’oce clan, and the clansmen loaded up horses with presents and brought a pipe to the father, begging him to desist from further steps toward punishment of the offender. The chief of the aci'oce took a pipe to the chief of the birtk-6’oce, who took it after some deliberation and said that inasmuch as a peace pipe was offered and as the affair had taken place long ago, he would allow the matter to drop. Then the father took the presents and distributed them among his clans- men. ‘To-day the murderer’s deed is forgiven. So far as I am able to learn, Morgan’s opinion that property was in- herited in the maternal line stands corroborated. At the time of my first visit to the Crow the Government officials were attempting to adjust the difference between the Federal and the native conceptions of inheritance, for, according to the old Crow view, land, like other property, should revert. to a deceased person’s brothers and sisters, that is to say, to his own clan. Bear-gets-up said that, before dying, a man might call out that he wished to give one or two horses to his wife or son, and that such a wish was re-- spected; however, the majority of the horses fell to the brothers’ share. The same rule applied to the inheritance of clothing. Medicines, however, were often bequeathed to the oldest son before death. One of the most conspicuous functions of the clan was the regulation of marriage. It was not considered proper that members of the same clan should marry. When a man did marry within his own clan, people said.
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3